You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
In my newest novel, What’s Left, the common image of a nuclear family is punctured when her father vanishes in an avalanche halfway around the globe when she’s 11. Daddy’s no longer present in the family picture. Only her mother, two older brothers, and Cassia herself. (Plus her aunts, uncles, and close cousins, who completely alter the picture.)
Her obsession to rediscover him brings her face to face with much more than her loss.
Large or small, family-owned businesses stand apart from other company models. Upward mobility into management may be limited for non-family, for one thing, and succession from one generation to the next can impose special hurdles – few family-owned enterprises survive into the fourth or fifth generations. And then inheritance tax issues can hit heavily, if key players fail to prepare properly. And that’s before we get into sibling rivalries and family spats.
On the other hand, they can be more flexible in aiming at long-range results or adapting to change.
In my new novel, What’s Left, these all play into the story. Her family isn’t like other employers, for sure. And it’s primed for exciting big growth.
As I viewed photographs of the kind of Victorian house her family would gravitate toward, having a round tower at one corner seemed natural – especially one capped by a pointy roof commonly called a witch’s hat. The idea of living in a tall-ceilinged attic, with its air of private retreat, holds romantic appeal anyway, but having it open out into a circle room with views overlooking the street in both directions strikes me as a plus. How about you?
Thanks to everyone who responded to my earlier invitation for comments regarding a few possible covers for my newest novel.
The survey ended in mixed results and prompted some heated in-house discussion, ultimately sending me back to the drawing board for a more compelling design.
Just what do we want as a cover, anyway? Are people’s faces a help or a distraction? Does a jacket work best if it somehow reflects a scene in the story, as my earlier mock-ups attempted to suggest? Or is reaching for a less constrained, emotional reaction more effective?
As you see, I’ve opted for the later. Here the image invokes a sense of being broken out from a protected shell and falling through space. It’s also appropriate for a family that owns a restaurant – food being a theme running throughout the story. Will this cover encourage a browser to open the book to discover, in effect, just what happens to the yolk? Where it will land?
That, of course, is my goal. To see if it fits, go to Smashwords, where you can order your own Advance Reading Copy for free. The offer will expire after 90 days, when the first edition comes out at $4.95, so act now.
Your early reactions will be most welcome in preparing for that release.
he could die now
flattened by wheels
electrocuted, biting a live wire
poisoned
or simple disease
or drown
all the complications, amassed
* * *
somewhere, in the limbs
what had riled him so early?
Blue Jay
squawking
could be confused
for squirrels
(What was the opera, anyway? Certainly not Cinderella
with her matching fur slippers)
unlike Cardinal
or those who keep a steady pace
each sunrise
each species how much bite off and chew
bury the rest now in a fury neighbors gain consciousness
take aim if they can brush the turret
* * *
Was she more rabbit or possum?
“Oh, but possums are meaner – they have more teeth
and they’re sharp” – well matched, in the end
* * *
knowing all the same they’ll be back
dawning alarm not of squirrels but outraged jays
surround a marauding crow
every jay within a mile or two assembles for attack
one after another, they dart at a wincing intruder
that finally departs, offended
already crows lay siege to a mockingbird nest
they pestered before destruction
try as you will, you can’ prevent much
even when striving for balance
still, you undertake what you can
alarmed, yes, and full of frustration,
load and fire the kid’s super-saturation water gun
startle a few squirrels raiding the bird feeder
knowing, all the same, they’ll be back
yet hoping he can prevent them
* * *
stripping the black walnut tree
after the strawberries and blueberries
all in their brief season
* * *
from the instrument he carries across thin snow
duty said nothing children, you know
domestic matters and adventures
of mice and squirrels and the manor
gingerbread, the squirrels and rabbits love to nibble
* * *
before the endless domestic encounters
Snakes in the basement.
Bees streaming
from the barn’s
loose siding.
I’ve lived many places:
I’ve lived nowhere
but the wind
or the workplace
until now.
* * *
keep the shell healthy for all within
he once thought, ignoring the empty fruit basket
he would learn there are jobs a man does
as if that, in itself, is sufficient qualification
what does he know now the world’s shrinking
save for trash removal? tell him, then, the eternity of hell
is different from the eternity of paradise
one just won’t end the other seems a flash
it’s no different than becoming conscious
abed they listen in winter night scratching inside old house walls
all the same she rolls toward him
he could depart as an old man baffled by suspenders to his pants
while his wife’s away having her hair styled
all along, his lady has been a holy terror as much as any
holy mother even so, they always get envelopes in the mail
* * *
he could be the squirrel at the bay window
or that whistle
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.
Mrs. Richardson had been yelling at the kid
the fifth-grade girl who came around to our door
begging money to pay the babysitter
Mrs. Richardson yelled at the grandchild
for three days, and spanked her
then they were crying, in different parts of the building
all the while, their phonograph repeated
“the angels sing, glory to the newborn king”
~*~
Mrs. Richardson was pale as death
her face, hollow as a skull; hair, powder gray
her lips were chalky, and the eyes barely moved
she was thin as a broomstick
her son returned, with a cardboard suitcase
and cowboy boots
he wouldn’t stay long, if he could help it
To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015
picnic table with a block of snow 2-feet deep atop it
and a hole at the center
extraordinary deep purple in the Siberian irises
Quaker ladies abloom on the meeting burial ground –
even on the Friends graves in Pine Hill Cemetery
the ox-eye daisies I lifted from rock and sand
to transplant here – my wife’s beloved June flower,
the blossom smaller and more delicate than the Shasta
old woman across the street with her phlox
sunflower, yes
forest sunflower
jungle sunflower
and the jingle, from the neighbor’s
wind chime
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.
after the blizzard, a raven
lands over our suet and cracked corn bird feeders
and then, while digging out
the driveway
the front steps for the mail carrier
and the barn steps for the grandmother
a pathway to the compost bins, on one side
and the stacked firewood, on the other
I’m at the heart of my universe
while my wife tends the fires
in our kitchen
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Home Maintenance poems, click here.
A three-year-old girl
held a life-size Mr. ZIP’s
cardboard hand in her own
while waiting for Daddy
or an interior lobby
stoplight to change.
Can we go now?
These days, she
must be
my wife’s age.
To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015
he’s not a bird
eating fish
or worms
see how frantically he spades
without weeding
how voraciously he climbs out
on the seeded maple twigs
* * *
incisor
domestica
rodentia
in residence
* * *
a squirrel with a martini
too much too often
fog in treetops before the wind blows
how do sparrows remember
once nested in this eave before rats or squirrels
found them out?
if it were only hickory nuts for high-fat content he’d
look shiny with such thought snickering abounds how is it
they acquire a taste for the Big Bad Wolf who bought the house?
* * *
nobody charged extra
for the vermin
* * *
in the walls they’re all wild creatures
of course, considering the jerry-rigged affairs
the preceding landholders had undertaken within this plot
(oh, the stories the neighbors were relating, all hinting
at more scandalous expansions now lost to posterity,
nobody could remember much in the way of detail,
except for the wild noises and all the coming and going)
the remaining evidence held no apologies
so what if we live
in cages of our own making? we still escape
into further flames or muck or fencing, all depending
on the company we keep
everyone’s a social creature,
the chattering
he’d considered birds was more or less
incensed squirrels, tearing about his estate
with that obscene flick of the tail
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.
